"Pray, sir," said Hyde, "consider me at your service. I have occasion to go into town at once, and will do your duty to the young ladies with infinite pleasure."
"Much obliged, Captain, vera much obliged; but it tak's an auld wise-headed, wise-hearted man like mysel' to walk safely atween twa bonnie lasses;" then turning to his son, he added, "Neil, my lad, put your beaver on, and go and find Bram. You can tell him, as he didna come to look after his sisters afore this hour, he needna come at a'."
"Do you know, father, where Bram is likely to be found?"
"Hum-m-m! As if you didna know yoursel'! He will dootless be among that crowd o' young wiseacres wha are certain the safety o' the Provinces is in their keeping. It's the young who ken a' things, ken mair than councils and assemblies, and king and parliament, thegither."
Colonel Gordon laughed. "Never mind, sir," he said, "they let the army alone, and the church; so you and I need hardly alarm ourselves"—
"I'm no sure o' that, Colonel. When it comes to the army, it's a mere question o' wha can strike the hardest blows; and as to kirk matters, I'm thinking men had better meddle wi' the things o' God, which they canna change, than wi' those o' the king wi' which they can wark a deal o' mischief."
While he was speaking, Neil left the room. The little argument struck him as a pretext and a cover, and he was glad to escape from a position which he felt to be both painful and humiliating. He was in a measure Captain Hyde's host, and subject to traditions regarding the duties of that character; any display of anger would be derogatory to him, and yet how difficult was restraint! So his father's interference was a welcome one; and he was reconciled to his own disappointment, when, looking back, he saw the old gentleman slowly taking the road to Van Heemskirk's with the pretty girls in their quilted red hoods, one on each side of him.
The elder was very polite to his charges; he never once regretted to them the loss of his pipe, and chat with Colonel Gordon. But he noticed that Katherine was silent and disappointed, and that she lingered in her own room after her arrival at home. Her subsequent pretty cheerfulness, her delight in her lilies, her confiding claims upon her father's love,—nothing in these things deceived him. He saw beneath all the fluttering young heart, trembling, and yet happy in the new, sweet feeling, never felt before, which had come to it that afternoon.
But he thought that most girls had to have this initiative: it prepared the way for a soberer and more lasting affection. In the end, Katherine would perceive how imprudent, how impossible, a marriage with Captain Hyde must be; and her heart would turn back to Neil, who had been her lover from boyhood. Yet he reflected, it would be well to have the matter understood, and to give it that "possibility" which is best attained on a money basis.
So while he and the Van Heemskirks discussed the matter,—a little reluctantly, he thought, on their part,—Katherine talked with Joanna of the Gordons. Her heart was so full of her lover, that it was a relief to discuss the people and things nearest to him. And her very repression excited her. She toyed with her cambric kerchief before the small looking-glass, and imitated the fashionable English lady with a piquant cleverness that provoked low peals of laughter, and a retrospective discussion of the evening, which was merry enough, without being in the least ill-natured.